i need you like a heart needs a beat
by fittedhatsandacaralarm
Summary: because you're lonely and you need a friend and you think you might like the way his thigh brushes up against yours when you're sitting together in your little lagoon. - lucyoc. nextgen.


You're nothing like your sister. You're not fiery and hot-tempered and impulsive. You're not the rebellious, spunky girl who didn't even try to pick up the pieces when your parents separated (isn't that such a strange word? It's not like separating two pairs of robes into different piles; it's nothing like that. It's ripping away half of your life, but you can't very well say, "Oh, yes, my mother ripped herself away from my father when I was merely ten months old, then brought me to France to live with her family." You just can't). You're not even a Hogwarts student, and you haven't even got the trademark Weasley hair (except it's not very trademark because Roxie and Freddie and Victoire and Louis haven't got it either, have they?) You're not even named after a war hero, simply your batty old Muggle grandmother! No, you're definitely not your older sister, Mollythesecond.

No, you're little Lucy with your head on your shoulders the right way and the dark brown hair and the Beauxbatons badge on your chest and the French accent and the **calm**_cool_collected exterior. You're just really not a true Weasley, if you look at it from the right angle. You prefer to think of yourself as Lucille Katherine Winters, your mother's daughter, but never your father's.

He's thirteen when you're Sorted into Ombrelune at Beauxbatons. He's sitting by a tall, dark-haired boy and they're talking about Quidditch as you slip onto the pale green bench across from them.

"_Bonjour,_ _mademoiselle_…? Hello, miss…?" he asks as he turns away from his friend abruptly. He has dark blonde hair and the same silvery grey-blue eyes as cousin Victoire, not to mention a French accent similar to yours.

"_Mon nom est Lucy Wea—Lucy Winters, en fait. _My name is Lucy Wea—Lucy Winters, actually," you explain casually, glancing occasionally at the students who get sorted into Ombrelune.

"_Joli nom. _Pretty name," he comments and grins at his pouting friend. "_Je suis Gaston Delacour_. I'm Gaston Delacour," he introduces, extending a large, pale hand for you to shake. Realization flashes across your face as you recognize him as cousin Gaston who Aunt Fleur would talk about constantly during your Christmas stays at the Burrow. Naturally, you'd never met him because his family stayed in France during the holidays, but you knew of him.

"_Um, le plaisir de faire votre connaissance. En quelle année etes-vous et votre ami? _Um, pleasure to make your acquaintance. What year are you and your friend in?" you add to ensure that his classmate was included in the conversation.

"_Et moi les votres. Pierre et moi sommes ici tiers ans._ And I yours. Pierre here and I are third-years," he says with a smirk, placing an elbow on Pierre's shoulder as if he were an armrest. You laugh softly, and begin picking at the French cuisine that has appeared on your silver plate. The conversation is over for now.

After dinner, as you're climbing the winding, circular staircases to the Ombrelune tower, you jump as a hand grabs your shoulder and yanks you back down the few steps you'd accomplished on your way up the third staircase.

"Hey!" you yell out as a second hand clamps over your mouth and pulls you into a dark room. You hear someone light a candle, and suddenly the room is illuminated with eerie, ghostly light. Gaston and Pierre are standing in front of you, their arms crossed and smirks playing on their faces.

"_Nous voulons vous montret quelque chose, Lucy. Voulez-vous venire avec nous? _We want to show you something, Lucy. Will you come with us?" Gaston asks as he jerks his blonde head backwards. You glance back and see an assortment of seemingly loose grey bricks have been yanked out of the floor, revealing a cramped circular staircase leading downdowndown into the blackness, the one thing you've always been the most terrified of.

"Fine," you hiss suddenly. That hadn't been your intended answer, but somehow it erupted from your mouth and now you were walking down the stairs in silence with Pierre and Gaston trailing behind you.

Somewhere along the way, you begin hearing the lapping of water, almost like the ocean by Aunt Fleur and Uncle Bill's little cottage, and you're so confused, but your legs keep moving forwards and finally, your black knee-high dragonskin boots press into warm, wet sand and a little blue lagoon is before you, buried what feels like miles beneath your new school.

"Whoa," the three of you breathed in unison, awestruck. Pierre's thick, brown eyebrows are nearly in his hair and Gaston is running his long fingers through his hair in shock. Your lower lip is nearly bleeding; you're biting it so hard.

Gaston is the first one to step forward, shoving past you and Pierre. As if a switch went off in your mind, your legs take off after him. He's crouching by the water, his fingertips hovering inches above the cerulean waves. You cross your legs and sit down beside him, then promptly dive your slender, bronze hand into the cool, clear water. He looks at you in shock as you kick off your boots and roll up your tan equestrian leggings, then stick your feet in the water, sighing at the cold water lapping against your calves. It takes a few seconds, but he follows your example.

"_Vis-voux deux. Je suis sorti. Je ne suis ps s'attirer des ennuis avecle Professeur Delacroix._ Screw you two. I'm out. I'm not getting in trouble with Professor Delacroix!" Pierre yelled suddenly as he raised his hands defensively and sped back up the stairs. Gaston frowned at the spot where he'd stood and moved closer to you, hugging his knees to his broad chest.

"_Nous n'avons pas besoin de lui. Cela peut etre notre place, a droite, Luce? _We don't need him. This can be our place, right, Luce?" he asks you, his eyes begging. Though you barely know the boy, you nod and smile at him, because you're lonely and you need a friend and you think you might like the way his thigh brushes up against yours when you're sitting together in your little lagoon.

Suddenly, it's the last week of your fourth year and his sixth, and you're still best friends. You've become LucyandGaston, much to the surprise of everyone else, including your professors. Gaston is the rebellious, rule-breaking troublemaker of the Ombrelune House, while you're **calm**_cool_collected Lucy who always gets her homework done and never fails any tests and is just a law-abiding citizen, but opposites always attract, right? He's just the Mollythesecond of Ombrelune, and you might just be the Percy Weasley, but you'll never admit that you're anything like your father, will you?

But, anyways, it's always been just LucyandGaston, so there's really no surprise anymore, and nevernevernever any outside interference.

Maybe that's why it hurts so much when you bound into the sixth-year boys' dormitory with your exam scores and see Gaston tangled up in his pale green sheets with Claire Bellerose, pink lipgloss smeared across his lips. The words you'd been about to say get caught in your throat, and you're choking on them. You gasp as the wind is knocked back into you and you just run. You run to your place, your little lagoon, ignoring his desperate shouts of, "_Lucy! Ce n'est pas…pas a quoi ca ressemble, je le promets! _Lucy! It's not…not what it looks like, I promise!"

You can't remember ripping out the bricks or stumbling down the nearly broken staircase, but next thing you know, you're curled up in a ball by the waves, clutching your chest as if it was pouring out blood, because, Oh, Merlin, ithurtsithurtsithurts and you just want your sister or your mother or, hell, even your dad! Tears are streaming down your face and you're sobbing, great, big, shuddering, body wracking sobs that surely are echoing up the stairs into the abandoned classroom, right?

Before you know it, familiar, muscular arms are wrapped around you, and you don't even try to push them off. Gaston pulls you into his lap (clothed, thank Merlin) and rocks you, shhing you. Your tears eventually subside and you lift your head to look at him. He's grimacing and his face is pale and he looks ashamed**broken**_worried_hurt.

"_Je suis désolé._ I'm sorry," he says simply before your lips are covering his in an apologetic, gentle, feisty, heated, frenzied, heartbreakingly cliché, but completely perfect kiss and oh, Merlin, you need him like a heart needs a beat, and you can't even believe it's taken you four whole years to realize it.

**[a/n]:** I surprisingly really like this one. Uh, guys? Expect Gaston to pop up. Often. Because I REALLY like his character, brahbrah. Just sayin'. **Anything you recognize, I don't own**. Don't favorite without reviewing! –R]


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